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There are 7 hotlinks here to authors, magazines, films,
or television items elsewhere in the Ultimate Westerns Web Guide or
beyond.Click here or scroll down...Executive Summary of the CenturyMajor Books and Events of the Decade 1900-1910Major Books and Events of the Decade 1910-1920Major Books and Events of the Decade 1920-1930Major Books and Events of the Decade 1930-1940Major Books and Events of the Decade 1940-1950Major Books and Events of the Decade 1950-1960Major Books and Events of the Decade 1960-1970Major Books and Events of the Decade 1970-1980Major Books and Events of the Decade 1980-1990Major Books and Events of the Decade 1990-2000Major Films of this CenturyOther Key Dates and Stories of this CenturyMajor Writers Born this Century {to be done}
Major Writers Died this CenturyHotlinks to other Timeline pages of SF ChronologyWhere to Go for More: 51 Useful Reference Books
Executive Summary of the Century
The saga of the American West begins with exploration, transitions through
exploitation, and ends in fiction.
Products and whole industries innovate, as seen in the first transcontinental
automobile trip, the Wright BrotherŐs first airplane flights, the breakthough
film ŇThe Great Train RobberyÓ, the first Ford Model T car, the first
transcontinental airplane flight, the first telephone call, the first
sound-on-film movie, and the mightiest skyscraper: the Empire State Building.
Economically, there are the following cycles:
* 1895-1906 Return of prosperity
* 1907-08 Panic of 1907
* 1909-18 Prosperity and war boom
* 1920-21 Sharp postwar recession
* 1922-29 Speculative boom
* 1929-1939 Great Depression
* 1939-45 Wartime recovery
* 1946-49 Postwar boom
* 1950-56 Korean war and postwar readjustment
* 1957-58 Recession
* 1958-70 Extended business expansion
* 1970-80 Inflation rates increased, while economic growth rates declined
* 1981-82 Recession
* 1983-88 Business expansion
* 1989-1991 Recession
* 1992-2000 Greatest economic expansion ever
[A History of American Agriculture 1776-1990]
Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books and Events of the Decade 1900-1910
Some facts about the decade 1900-1909
* 76,000,000 Americans in 48 states
* Policeman arrests woman for smoking in public
* $46,000,000+ in the U.S. treasury
* 8,000 cars - 10 miles of paved roads
* 1900 - Auto deaths 96; lynchings 115
* San Francisco Earthquake took 700 lives and cost over $4,000,000 in damage.
* Average worker made $12.98/week for 59 hours
* Life expectancy: 47.3 female, 46.3 male - 33.0 blacks
[source:
American Cultural History]
1900: Jack London, The Son of the Wolf, his first book
1900: Francis LaFlesche, The Middle Five, book-length autobiography by
Indian
1900: Hatchet in hand, Carrie Nation begins raiding saloons, hoping to kick AmericaŐs addiction to booze.
1901: Frank Norris, The Octopus: A Story of California
1901: John G. Neihardt, "The Divine Enchantment," his first major poem
1901: "The Spindletop oil gusher in Beaumont, Texas, opens a century when
'black gold' will play a vital role in the economy of the West, as
Americans exchange the horse for the horsepower of the automobile."
1901: "Congresss confers U.S. citizenship on all Native Americans residing in
the Oklahoma Territory after the failure of an 1890 law that offered
citizenship to Indians who applied for it. Only four applicants had taken
advantage of the earlier law, all of whom evidently suffered ostracism for
adopting the white man's ways."
1902: "Owen Wister publishes The Virginian, a novel romanticizing cowboy life
in the Wyoming cattle country of the 1870s which introduces the strong,
silent hero and the climactic 'showdown' to the growing myth of the
American West."
1902: Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa; Sioux), Indian Boyhood
1902: Gertrude Atherton, The Splendid Idle Forties
1902: Frederic Remington, John Ermine of the Yellowstone
1902: "President Theodore Roosevelt secures passage of the Newlands
Reclamation Act, an unprecedented law authorizing federal construction of
dams and reservoirs in the West funded by public land sales. The act is
designed to promote settlement (rather than industry) by limiting tracts
within the water project areas to 160 acres, in accordance with the 1862
Homestead Act, and is designed to be self-sustaining by passing the costs
of construction on to water-users, who are to assume management of each
project once the federal government has been reimbursed.
In practice, these latter aspects of the law often prove unworkable, and
the effect of the Newlands Act is to institute a massive federally-funded
public works program operating under bureaucratic control that measures its
success by the number of dams built and the millions of acres of water
impounded. By this measure, the Newlands Act achieves outstanding success,
leading ultimately to the colossal projects of the Depression years: Hoover
Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, Shasta Dam and the Glen Canyon Dam."
1903: Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain
1903: Jack London, Call of the Wild and The People of the Abyss
1903: Andy Adams, The Log of a Cowboy
1903: Billy the Kid, play by Walter Woods
Movie Westerns of 1903
1904: John C. Van Dyke, The Desert
1904: Mary Austin, The Basket Woman
1905: Emerson Hough, Heart's DesireMovie Westerns of 1904
1905: "President Theodore Roosevelt transfers management of the federal
forest reserves to the United States Forest Service, an agency headed by
college-trained conservationist Gifford Pinchot. Invoking scientific
principles and applying bureaucratic procedures, Pinchot works effectively
to guarantee the long-term usefulness of western timberlands, resisting
business interests that would exploit them for short-term profit as well as
preservationists, led by John Muir, who would remove them forever from the
national economy."
1905: "Western Federation of Miners official, William K. 'Big Bill' Haywood,
hoping to broaden the base of unionism in the West, co-founds the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a socialist organization opposed to
capitalism and dedicated to the creation of 'One Big Union' for all members
of the working class rather than individual unions for each industry. IWW
members become known as 'Wobblies,' a nickname that has never been
successfully explained."
Movie Westerns of 1905
1906: "A devastating earthquake virtually destroys San Francisco, setting off
fires that burn out eight square miles in the city, leaving 250,000
homeless."
1906: William Vaughn Moody, The Great Divide
1906: George Wharton James, The Wonders of the Colorado Desert
1906: B. M. Bower (Bertha Sinclair Muzzy), Chip of the Flying U
1906: Thomas Hornsby Ferril, "A Mountain Thought," first published poem
1906: Early Western Travels, edited by Reuben Thwaites, multivolume
collection of major western travel and exploration narratives
1906: "Congress adopts the Preservation of American Antiquities Act, designed
primarily to protect historic sites for posterity. President Theodore
Roosevelt turns the law to his conservationist purposes by using it to
preserve natural treasures, like Devil's Tower in Wyoming and the Grand
Canyon in Arizona, which he designates National Monuments."
1906: "The San Francisco school board orders segregation of Asian children in
the city's public schools, setting off an international crisis when Japan
protests that such discrimination violates its treaty relationships with
the United States."
Movie Westerns of 1907
1907: O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Heart of the West
1907: Oliver O. Howard, My Life and Experiences Among Our Hostile Indians
1907: Oklahoma enters the union.
1907: "Hoping to repair U.S. relationships with Japan, President Theodore
Roosevelt persuades the San Francisco school board to reverse its order
segregating Asian students. As a result, Roosevelt wins Japan's agreement
to a new immigration policy that will bar Japanese and Korean laborers from
the United States, thereby effectively extending the Chinese Exclusion Act
to all Asian nationals."
1908: Martha Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life
of a New England Woman
1908: "President Theodore Roosevelt creates a National Conservation
Commission to propose policy for using the country's natural resources in a
way that will maintain their usefulness into the future. For the
commissioners, conservation involves regulated and efficient exploitation
of Western land, not preservation of the Western landscape for its own
sake."
Movie Westerns of 1908
1909: "Under the Dawes Act, 700,000 acres of former tribal land is opened to
white settlers in Washington, Idaho and Montana. The steady erosion of
tribal integrity represented by the Dawes Act will continue until its
repeal in 1934."
1909: "The Selig Polyscope Company leads the exodus of motion picture
companies from the east coast to Los Angeles, where the mild climate,
abundant sunshine and variety of natural backdrops provide the ingredients
for year-round filmmaking in the era of outdoor production."
1909: Founding of Texas Folklore Society
1909: Jack London, Martin Eden
1909: Frances M. A. Roe, Army Letters from an Officer's Wife
1909: Enos Mills, Wild Life on the Rockies
1909: "The Industrial Workers of the World, led by 'Big Bill' Haywood, bring
the Montana timber industry to a standstill through a series of strikes
reinforced by 'direct action' tactics that include sabotage and arson. This
willingness to use violence as a force for social reform, which some link
to the union's Western heritage, together with a commitment to radical
socialism, sharpens opposition to the Wobblies among industrialists and
more conservative unionists alike."
Movie Westerns of 1909Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books and Events of the Decade 1910-1920
1910-1920: This started as a wildly optimistic decade, with visions of
technological wonders that would make human life ever more wonderful.
Horribly, after the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated (1914) in the Balkans,
the world was plunged into the "War to End All Wars", with technology playing
a deadly role, with high explosives, hardened steel tanks rolling over soldiers,
poison gas (1915) attacking the lungs of combatants whose lives were changed.
One such chlorine-gassed soldier was young Adolf Hitler, but that's another
story. Germany floats the first Zeppelins into the air.
1910-1919
FACTS about this decade.
* Population: 92,407,000
* Life Expectancy: Male 48.4 Female: 51.8
* Average Salary $750 / year
* The Ziegfeld girls earned $75/week.
* Unemployed: 2,150,000
* National Debt: $1.15 billion
* Union Membership: 2.1 million Strikes 1,204
* Attendance: Movies 30 million per week
* Lynchings: 76
* Divorce: 1/1000
* Vacation: 12 day cruise $60
* Whiskey $3.50 / gallon, Milk $.32 / gallon
* Speeds make automobile safety an issue
* 25,000 performers tour 4,000 U.S. theaters
[Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History
The Twentieth Century, 1910-1919]
"The 1910s was a decade of great change for America. It was the decade when
the United States was first considered a world leader. Many of the issues
we face today were important including the escalating of immigration and poverty,
labor and monopoly battles, work safety and child labor problems. World War I -
the first 'war to end all wars' raged. The 1910s were the decade America came of
age."
1910: Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Good Men and TrueMovie Westerns of 1910
1911: "The Nestor Company opens the first film studio in the Hollywood area
of Los Angeles, taking over a tavern closed by temperance activists. Within
the decade, 'Hollywood' will become the nickname for an entertainment
industry destined to make the West the source of American popular culture
and home of America's most incandescent cultural stars."
1911: Sharlot Hall, Cactus and Pine, collection of western poems
1912: Robinson Jeffers, Flagons and Apples, first volume of poems
1912: Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage
1912: John Muir, The Yosemite
1912: Ole Rřlvaag, Amerika-Breve (Letters from America), first novel
1912: Arizona and New Mexico enter the Union.
1912: Arizona, Kansas and Oregon give women the right to vote.
1913: Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, her first farm novel
1913: Oscar Micheaux, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer,
first novel by a black in the West
1913: "William Mulholland completes construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct,
an engineering marvel that stretches more than 200 miles through mountains
and over desert to bring his city the water it needs to grow. Tapping the
Owens River in the Sierra Nevada, the aqueduct transforms the once fertile
Owens Valley into a watershed for what will one day be the most populous
city in the nation, providing a forecast of issues that will arise
repeatedly as water resources are redistributed across the West."
1913: The U.S. Mint issues the "Buffalo" or "Indian Head" nickel, with an
Indian's head shown in profile on the side inscribed "Liberty" and a
buffalo on the side bearing the motto "E pluribus unum," or "From many,
one." The unconscious irony of the design makes the coin almost an emblem
of the nation's complex relationship to its Western heritage.
1913: "California adopts the Alien Land Law, which targets Japanese in the
state by making it illegal for aliens ineligible for citizenship to own
farmland or lease it for more than three years. President Woodrow Wilson
voices objection to the law, fearing its effect on U.S. relations with
Japan."
1913: "The Industrial Workers of the World fail in their pioneering attempt
to win better wages and working conditions for migrant workers at the Durst
hop ranch in Wheatland, California, when police intervention sparks a riot
in which four people are killed."
1914: Robinson Jeffers moves to Carmel, California, with his new wife Una
1914: Osborne Russell, Journal of a Trapper, notable mountain man document
1914: "Socialist mine workers overthrow the Western Federation of Miners in
Butte, Montana, where it has represented labor interests since 1892.
Accusing WFM leaders of election fraud and collusion with the copper
companies, the insurgents blow up the union hall, leading Montana's
governor to send in the state militia to restore order. While the city is
under martial law, company officials take advantage of the situation by
withdrawing union recognition, leaving miners on both sides of the dispute
without job protections."
1914: "National Guardsmen and security agents attack striking mine workers at
Ludlow, Colorado, setting fire to their tent city and shooting them down as
they flee. Three men, two women and 13 children are killed in the 'Ludlow
Massacre,' which company and National Guard officials defend as necessary
to prevent anarchy."
1914: "The Panama Canal is completed, opening a new economic era in the West
as Pacific seaports suddenly find themselves positioned on the world's
busiest sea lanes.:
1915: Founding of Midland, regional literary magazine, by John T. Frederick
1915: Harry Leon Wilson, Rugggles of Red Gap
1915: Southwest Review begins publication (Texas Review, 1915-24)
1915: John G. Neihardt publishes first Song of Epic Cycle of the West
(other four Songs in 1919, 1925, 1935, 1941)
1915: Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
1915: The first tourist automobiles enter Yellowstone Park.
1915: "Joe Hill, whose radical protest songs made him the troubador of the
Industrial Workers of the World, is executed by a firing squad in Salt Lake
City, convicted of a murder no one saw him commit and for which he had no
motive. IWW President 'Big Bill' Haywood makes Hill's case a national
sensation, raising a popular outcry that causes even President Wilson to
urge clemency, but without success. On the eve of his execution, Hill sends
Haywood a telegram that confirms his place among the Western heroes of
American radicalism: 'Don't waste time mourning. Organize.'"
1916: Charles A. Eastman (Sioux), From the Deep Woods to Civilization
1916: "William E. Boeing, a Seattle timber baron, establishes the Boeing
Airplane Company with a contract to build 50 biplanes for the Navy. His
factory is the harbinger of an aerospace industry that will flourish in the
West, drawing billions in government funds to the region."
Your Humble Webmaster worked for Boeing, and plans to add hotlinks
here... {to be done}
1916: "A six-month-long lumber strike organized by the Industrial Workers of
the World leads to violence in Everett, Washington, where a sheriff's posse
makes union members run a ganlet that leaves the roadway stained with
blood, then opens fire at a protest rally, killing five and wounding 31.
Still the Wobblies press their call for 'One Big Union.'"
1917: Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border
1917: Mary Hallock Foote, Edith Bonham
1917: "Buffalo Bill" Cody dies in Denver, Colorado, where he is buried in a
tomb blasted out of Lookout Mountain.
1917: The United States declares war on Germany, entering World War I.
1918: Willa Cather, My Antonia
1919: Will Rogers (Cherokee), Rogers-isms: The Cowboy Philosopher on the
Peace Conference and Rogers-isms: The Cowboy Philosopher on Prohibition
1919: H. L. Davis wins Levinson Prize for poems in
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1920-1930
The New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, and so 1930 was the
start -- although nobody knew it then -- of the Great Depression. Meanwhile,
Hitler's Nazi party gained power (starting 1930), and soon leads to the
annexation of Austria (1938) and the invasion of Poland (1939), which draws
France and Great Britain into World War II. Paris is captured in 1940, and
the same year marks Trotsky's assassination. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is
U.S. president (1932 into the next decade).
1920-1929: FACTS about this decade.
* 106,521,537 people in the United States
* 2,132,000 unemployed, Unemployment 5.2%
* Life expectancy: Male 53.6, Female 54.6
* 343.000 in military (down from 1,172,601 in 1919)
* Average annual earnings $1236; Teacher's salary $970
* Dow Jones High 100 Low 67
* Illiteracy rate reached a new low of 6% of the population.
* Gangland crime included murder, swindles, racketeering
* It took 13 days to reach California from New York There were 387,000 miles
of paved road.
[source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History]
1920: Alice Corbin (Henderson), Red Earth, an early volume drawing on
Indian and Hispanic traditions of the Southwest
1920: Sinclair Lewis, Main StreetMovie Westerns of 1920
1921: Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Stepsons of Light
1921: Hamlin Garland, A Daughter of the Middle Border, wins Pulitzer Prize
1921: Harvey Fergusson, Blood of the Conquerors
1922: Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt
1922: Dame Shirley (Louise A. K. S. Clappe), The Shirley Letters,
edited by Thomas Russell; important source on Gold Rush camps
1922: Harry Leon Wilson, Merton of the Movies
1923: Emerson Hough, North of 36
1923: Willa Cather wins Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922)
1923: Mary Austin, The American Rhythm
1923: Land of Sunshine merges with Overland Monthly
1923: Willa Cather, A Lost Lady
1924: Sidney Howard, They Knew What They Wanted
1924: Mary Austin, The Land of Journeys' Ending
1924: Robinson Jeffers, Tamar and Other Poems;
reprinted as Roan Stallion and Other Poems (1925)
1925: Willa Cather, The Professor's House
1925: Frederic Logan Paxson, History of the American Frontier,
wins Pulitzer Prize for history
1925: Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind
1925: Martha Ostenso, Wild Geese, her first novel of prairie farm life
1925: Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith, wins Pulitzer Prize for fiction
1926: Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Pasó por Aquí
1926: Thomas Hornsby Ferril, High Passage, wins Yale Younger Poets Award
1926: Susan Shelby Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico
1926: Will James, Smoky, the Cow Horse
1926: Walter Noble Burns, The Saga of Billy the Kid
1927: Ole Rřlvaag, Giants in the Earth, first published in English
1927: Mourning Dove, Co-ge-we-a, first novel by an Indian woman
1927: Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
1927: Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought,
classic interpretation from western populistic perspective
1927: Upton Sinclair, Oil, first major novel on oil industry
1927: Frontier begins as regional magazine, H. G. Merriam as editor
1927: Prairie Schooner begins publication at the University of Nebraska
1927: Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Heavenly Discourses
1927: Harvey Fergusson, Wolf Song
1928: Vardis Fisher, Toilers of the Hills, first novel and first in
Antelope Hills series
1928: Lynn Riggs, A Lantern to See By
1929: J. Frank Dobie, A Vaquero of the Brush Country
1929: Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy, wins Pulitzer Prize
1929: Folk-Say: A Regional Miscellany, notable regional collection,
B. A. Botkin, editor
1929: Wallace Thurman, The Blacker the BerryReturn to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books and Events of the Decade 1930-1940
1930-1939:
FACTS about this decade.
* Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states
* Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6
* Average salary: $1,368
* Unemployment rises to 25%
* Huey Long proposes a guaranteed annual income of $2,500
* Car Sales: 2,787,400
* Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a quart.; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound
* Lynchings: 21
"By the 1930s money was scarce because of the depression, so people did what
they could to make their lives happy. Movies were hot, parlor games and board
games were popular. People gathered around radios to listen to the Yankees.
Young people danced to the big bands. Franklin Roosevelt influenced Americans
with his Fireside Chats. The golden age of the mystery novel continued as
people escaped into books, reading writers like Agatha Christie,
Dashielle Hammett, and Raymond Chandler."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1930 - 1939]
1930: Frances Gillmor, Windsinger
1930: Edna Ferber, Cimarron
1930: Sinclair Lewis becomes first American writer to be
awarded a Nobel Prize
1930: Max Brand (Frederick Faust), Destry Rides Again
1930: J. Frank Dobie, Coronado's Children, folk tales of the Southwest
1930: Writers' Editions cooperative of Santa Fe begins publishing
south-western works
1930: Katherine Anne Porter, Flowering Judas, first collection of short stories
1930: Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, first Sam Spade novel
Movie Westerns of 1930
1931: New Mexico Review begins, T. M. Pearce and Dudley Winn, editors
1931: Ole Rřlvaag, Their Fathers' God, his final prairie novel
1931: Lynn Riggs (Cherokee), Green Grow the Lilacs,
play from which the musical Oklahoma was made
1931: Robert Cantwell, Laugh and Lie Down
1932: Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain's America, sets off argument with
Van Wyck Brooks on Mark Twain, the West, and American culture
1932: John Joseph Mathews (Osage), Wah' Kon-Tah
1932: Mary Austin, Earth Horizon
1932: Maxwell Anderson, Night over Taos
1932: John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
1933: Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of Sections in
American History, wins Pulitzer Prize for history
1933: Robinson Jeffers, Give Your Heart to the Hawks
1933: T. M. Pearce and Telfair Hendon, eds.,
America in the Southwest: A Regional Anthology
1933: The Lone Ranger, WXYZ Radio, Detroit
1934: Robert Cantwell, The Land of Plenty
1934: Ruth Suckow, The Folks
1934: William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and
Other Stories, his first collection
1934: Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Westering
1935: Paul Horgan, No Quarter Given, his first novel about the Southwest
1935: Bernard DeVoto begins his twenty-one-year stint as writer of the Easy
Chair column in Harper's
1935: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie
1935: Robert E. Sherwood, The Petrified Forest
1935: Mari Sandoz, Old Jules, wins Atlantic Non-Fiction Prize
1935: H. L. Davis, Honey in the Horn, wins Harper Prize 1935;
Pulitzer Prize 1936
1935: John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
1935: Overland Monthly ceases publication
1935: George Stewart, Bret Harte: Argonaut and Exile
1936: John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle
1936: Sophus Winther, Take All to Nebraska, first of three novels about
Americans on the frontier
1936: Bernard DeVoto begins brief stint as editor of
Saturday Review of Literature (1936-38)
1936: Lynn Riggs, Cherokee Night, first play by Indian writer on
an Indian subject
1936: D'Arcy McNickle, The Surrounded
1936: George Milburn, Catalogue: A Novel
1937: Conrad Richter, The Sea of Grass
1937: E. P. Conkle, Two Hundred Were Chosen
1937: John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
1937: Wallace Stegner, Remembering Laughter, his first novel wins the Little,
Brown novelette prize
1937: Oliver La Farge, The Enemy Gods
1937: Intermountain Review (later Rocky Mountain Review and
Western Review) begins publication, edited by Ray B. West
1938: Mabel Major, Rebecca Smith, and T. M. Pearce, eds.,
Southwest Heritage
1938: Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poetry
1938: John Steinbeck, The Long Valley
1939: William Attaway, Let Me Breathe Thunder
1939: William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life, wins Pulitzer Prize (1940) but
he declines the award
1939: Paul Corey, Three Miles Square, first of Mantz trilogy
1939: Vardis Fisher, Children of God, wins Harper Prize
1939: Franklin Walker, San Francisco's Literary Frontier
1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, wins Pulitzer Prize
1939: Katherine Anne Porter, Pale Horse, Pale Rider
1939: J. Frank Dobie's Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver wins first Texas Institute
of Letters award for best book by a Texan
1939: Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
1939: Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust
1939: Carey McWilliams, Factories in the Fields, revisionist study of farm
workers
1939: William Everson, San Joaquin
1939: Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
1939: Joseph Henry Jackson, Bad CompanyReturn to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Events and Books of the Decade 1940-1950
1940-1950:
FACTS about this decade.
* Population 132,122,000
* Unemployed in 1940 - 8,120,000
* National Debt $43 Billion
* Average Salary $1,299. Teacher's salary $1,441
* Minimum Wage $0.43 per hour
* 55% of U.S. homes have indoor plumbing
* Antarctica is discovered to be a continent
* Life expectancy 68.2 female, 60.8 male
* Auto deaths 34,500
* Supreme Court decides blacks do have a right to vote
* World War II changed the order of world power, the United States and
the USSR became super powers
* Cold War begins.
"The 1940's were dominated by World War II. European artists and intellectuals
fled Hitler and the Holocaust, bringing new ideas created in disillusionment.
War production pulled us out of the Great Depression. Women were needed to
replace men who had gone off to war, and so the first great exodus of women from
the home to the workplace began. Rationing affected the food we ate, the clothes
we wore, the toys with which children played."
"After the war, the men returned, having seen the rest of the world.
No longer was the family farm an ideal; no longer would blacks accept lesser
status. The GI Bill allowed more men than ever before to get a college education.
Women had to give up their jobs to the returning men, but they had tasted
independence."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1940 - 1949]
1940: Yvor Winters, Poems
1940: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident
1940: William Saroyan, My Name is Aram
1940: Judy Van Der Veer, November Grass
1940: Alan Swallow publishes first book: Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn
Warren, eds., Signets: An Anthology of Beginnings
1940: Edward and Charles Weston, California and the West
1940: Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely
1940: Paul Bailey, For This My Glory
1940: John Steinbeck and Edward Ricketts, Sea of CortezMovie Westerns of 1940
1941: J. Frank Dobie, The Longhorns
1941: Kenneth Rexroth, In What Hour, first poetic collection
1941: Frank Waters, People of the Valley
1941: George R. Stewart, Storm
1941: Maurine Whipple, The Giant Joshua
1942: Frank Waters, The Man Who Killed the Deer
1942: Wright Morris, My Uncle Dudley, his first novel
1942: J. Frank Dobie, Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest
1942: Idwal Jones, The Vineyard
1942: William Saroyan, The Human Comedy
1942: Robert Easton, The Happy Man
1942: Virginia Sorensen, A Little Lower Than the Angels
1943: Wallace Stegner, The Big Rock Candy Mountain
1943: Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake
1944: Bernard DeVoto, The Literary Fallacy, precipitates controversy
with Sinclair Lewis
1944: J. Frank Dobie, A Texan in England
1944: Feike Feikema (Frederick Manfred), The Golden Bowl
1944: Ernest Haycox, Bugles in the Afternoon
1945: John Joseph Mathews (Osage), Talking to the Moon
1945: George R. Stewart, Names on the Land
1945: Josephina Niggli, Mexican Village
1945: Oliver La Farge, Raw Material, an autobiographical account
1945: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The City of Trembling Leaves
1945: Khatchik Minasian wins Edwin Markham Gold Medal for Poetry
1945: Arizona Quarterly begins, Albert R. Gregenheimer founding editor
1945: Promised Land, edited by Stewart Holbrook, Northwest regional
anthology
1945: James Stevens, Big Jim Turner
1945: Great Tales of the American West, edited by Harry E. Maule
1945: John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
1945: Luke Short (Frederick Glidden), And the Wind Blows Free
1946: Frank Waters, The Colorado
1946: Southwesterners Write, eds. T. M. Pearce and A. P. Thomason
1946: Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660, first major work on Japanese-American
relocation camp experiences.
1946: Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart, first major book by a
Filipino-American
1947: Herbert Krause, The Thresher
1947: Feike Feikema (Frederick Manfred), This Is the Year
1947: Frank Waters, The Yogi of Cockroach Court
1947: Mario Suárez's first story appears in Arizona Quarterly
1947: Western Humanities Review, Jack Garlington founding editor
1947: A. B. Guthrie, The Big Sky
1948: Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri, wins Pulitzer Prize for history
1948: Wright Morris, The Home Place
1948: Forrester Blake, Johnny Christmas
1948: Theodore Roethke, The Lost Son and Other Poems
1948: Robinson Jeffers, The Double Ax
1948: Samuel W. Taylor, Heaven Knows Why
1948: George R. Stewart, Fire
1949: Tom Lea, The Brave Bulls
1949: Jack Schaefer, Shane
1949: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Track of the Cat
1949: A. B. Guthrie, The Way West, wins Pulitzer Prize
Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1950-1960
1950-1959
FACTS about this decade.
* Population: 149,1888,000
* Unemployed: 3,288,000
* Life expectancy: women 71.1, men 65.6
* Car Sales: 6,665,800 0
* Average salary: $2,992
* Labor force male/female: 5/2
* Cost of a loaf of bread: $0.14
* Bomb shelter plans, like the government pamphlet You Can Survive,
become widely available
"The end of World War II brought thousands of young servicemen back to America
to pick up their lives and start new families in new homes with new jobs.
With an energy never before experienced, American industry expanded to meet
peacetime needs. Americans began buying goods not available during the war,
which created corporate expansion and jobs. Growth everywhere.
The baby boom was underway... "
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1950 - 1959]
1950: Frank Waters, Masked Gods
1950: Franklin Walker, A Literary History of Southern California
1950: Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
1950: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Watchful Gods and Other Stories
1950: Khatchik Minasian, The Simple Songs of Khatchik Minasian,
first poetry collection
1950: Harvey Fergusson, Grant of Kingdom
1950: Wallace Stegner, Women on the Wall, first short story collection
Movie Westerns of 1950
1951: A. Grove Day, The Sky Clears: Poetry of the American lndian
1951: Webmaster Jonathan Vos Post is born
1952: Bernard DeVoto, The Course of Empire
1952: Tom Lea, The Wonderful Country
1952: John Houghton Allen, Southwest
1952: Thomas Hornsby Ferril, New and Selected Poems
1952: Joseph Wood Krutch, The Desert Year
1952: John Steinbeck, East of Eden
1952: Edna Ferber, Giant
1952: Ernest Haycox, The Earthbreakers, the last written of his many novels
1952: J. Frank Dobie, The Mustangs
1952: Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Frontier
1953: William Inge, Picnic, wins Pulitzer Prize for drama
1953: Jack Schaefer, The Canyon
1953: J. Mason Brewer, The Word on the Brazos
1953: Louis L'Amour, Hondo, his first well-known Western
1953: H. L. Davis, Team Bells Woke Me and Other Stories
1953: Dorothy M. Johnson, Indian Country, a collection of stories
1954: Thomas McGrath, Figures from a Double World, wins Alan Swallow Award
1954: Paul Horgan, Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History,
wins Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for history
1954: Frederick Manfred, Lord Grizzly
1954: Theodore Roethke, The Waking, wins Pulitzer Prize for poetry
1954: Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
1954: Alan Le May, The Searchers
1954: Harvey Fergusson, The Conquest of Don Pedro
1955: William Inge, Bus Stop
1955: Six Poets at the Six Gallery: Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Lamantia,
Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Allen Ginsberg
1956: Wright Morris, The Field of Vision, wins National Book Award (1957)
1956: W. H. Hutchinson, A Bar Cross Man
1956: William Eastlake, Go in Beauty
1956: Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems
1956: A. B. Guthrie, These Thousand Hills
1956: Fred Gipson, Old Yeller
1956: Edward Abbey, The Brave Cowboy
1957: William Inge, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
1957: Jack Kerouac, On the Road
1957: Jack Schaefer, Company of Cowards
1957: Northwest Review begins publication
1957: John Okada, No-No Boy, major work on Japanese-American
relocation camp
1957: Robert Laxalt, Sweet Promised Land, first major work on American
Basques
1957: Blue Cloud Quarterly, literary magazine, begins publication, Brother
Benet Tuedten editor
1957: Frederick Manfred, Riders of Judgment
1957: Dorothy M. Johnson, The Hanging Tree, a collection of stories
1957: Shig Murao and Lawrence Ferlinghetti arrested for selling "obscene" Howl
1958: San Francisco columnist Herb Caen coins term "Beatnik"
1958: Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse of
Theodore Roethke, wins Bollingen Prize
1958: José Antonio Villarreal, Pocho, first important Chicano novel
1958: The Book of Negro Folklore, edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps
1958: William Eastlake, The Bronc People
1958: Wright Morris, The Territory Ahead
1959: The Wormwood Review, Marvin Malone, publisher
1959: Frederick Manfred, Conquering Horse
1959: Gary Snyder, Riprap, first collection of poems
Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1960-1970
1960-1969
FACTS about this decade.
* Population 177,830,000
* Unemployment 3,852,000
* National Debt 286.3 Billion
* Average Salary $4,743
* Teacher's Salary $5,174
* Minimum Wage $1.00
* Life Expectancy: Males 66.6 years, Females 73.1 years
* Auto deaths 21.3 per 100,000
* An estimated 850,000 "war baby" freshmen enter college; emergency living
quarters are set up in dorm lounges, hotels and trailer camps.
"The sixties were the age of youth, as 70 million children from the post-war
baby boom became teenagers and young adults. The movement away from the
conservative fifties continued and eventually resulted in revolutionary ways of
thinking and real change in the cultural fabric of American life. No longer
content to be images of the generation ahead of them, young people wanted change.
The changes affected education, values, lifestyles, laws, and entertainment.
Many of the revolutionary ideas which began in the sixties are continuing to
evolve today."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1960 - 1969]
1960: Jack Schaefer, Old Ramon
1960: Don Berry, Trask
1960: Wright Morris, Ceremony in Lone Tree
1960: Poetry Northwest begins publication
1960: Paul Horgan, A Distant Trumpet
1960: E. L. Doctorow, Welcome to Hard Times
1960: Will Henry (Henry Wilson Allen), From Where the Sun Now Stands
1960: John Graves, Goodbye to a RiverMovie Westerns of 1960
1961: Larry McMurtry, Horseman Pass By, his first novel
1961: The Outsider magazine founded by Jon and Louise Webb
1961: John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
1961: William Brammer, The Gay Place, first novel
1962: John Steinbeck is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
1962: Don Berry, Moontrap
1962: William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark, wins the National Book
Award for Poetry (1963)
1962: Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
1962: A Country in the Mind, edited by Ray B. West
1962: Upton Sinclair, Autobiography
1962: Theodora Kroeber, Ishi in Two Worlds
1962: Ken Kesey, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
1962: Edward Abbey, Fire on the Mountain
1963: Frank Waters, Book of the Hopi
1963: Jack Schaefer, Monte Walsh
1963: William Eastlake, Portrait of an Artist with Twenty-Six Horses
1963: South Dakota Review begins publication, John R. Milton, editor
1963: Virginia Lee, The House That Tai Ming Built
1964: Benjamin Capps, The Trail to Ogallala
1964: J. Frank Dobie, Cow People
1964: Theodore Roethke, The Far Field, posthumous
1964: The Western Review begins publication
1964: Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
1964: Thomas McGrath, New and Selected Poems
1964: Frederick Manfred, Scarlet Plume
1964: Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
1964: Sam Shepard, Cowboys, first play begins off Broadway
1965: Katherine Anne Porter, The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter,
wins Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award ( 1966)
1965: Luis Valdez founds El Teatro Campesino
1965: Joan Didion, Run River, her first novel
1965: Oliver La Farge, The Door in the Wall, a collection of short stories
1965: lnternational Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, published
by Len Fulton and Ellen Ferber
1965: Organization of the Western Literature Association
1965: Vardis Fisher, Mountain Men
1966: Frank Waters, The Woman at Otowi Crossing
1966: Western American Literature begins publication, J. Golden Taylor and
Delbert E. Wylder, founding editors
1966: James K. Folsom, The American Western Novel
1966: Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Words for Denver
1966: Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke
1966: Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show
1967: Publication of Southwest Writers Series, edited by James W. Lee (1967-74)
1967: William Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, wins Pulitzer Prize for
history
1967: Jack Schaefer, Mavericks
1967: COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers)
founded in Berkeley by Len Fulton and Jerry Bums
1967: Ishmael Reed, The Free-lance Pallbearers, first novel
1967: Small Press Review begins publication, edited by Len Fulton
1967: Southwest Writers Anthology, edited by Martin Shockley
1967: Gerald Locklin, Sunset Beach, first poetry collection
1967: Gary Snyder, The Back Country
1967: Robert Bly, The Light Around the Body, wins National Book Award for
poetry (1969)
1967: Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America
1967: Wright Morris, In Orbit
1968: Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
1968: Leslie Fiedler, The Return of the Vanishing American
1968: American Negro Folklore, edited by J. Mason Brewer
1968: Richard Bradford, Red Sky at Morning
1968: N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn, first novel,
wins Pulitzer Prize (1969)
1969: Frank Waters, Pumpkin Seed Point
1969: Vine Deloria, Custer Died for Your Sins
1969: Leonard Gardner, Fat City, first novel
1969: James D. Houston, Gig, first novel
1969: The American Indian Speaks in Poetry, Fiction, Art, Music, Commentary,
landmark anthology edited by John R. Milton
1969: Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water
1969: Gary Snyder, Earth House HoldReturn to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1970-1980
1970-1979
FACTS about this decade.
* Population: 204,879,000
* Unemployed in 1970: 4,088,000
* National Debt: $382 billion
* Average salary: $7,564
* Food prices: milk, 33 cents a qt.; bread, 24 cents a loaf;
round steak, $1.30 a pound
* Life Expectancy: Male, 67.1; Female, 74.8
"The chaotic events of the 60's, including war and social change, seemed
destined to continue in the 70's. Major trends included a growing
disillisionment of government, advances in civil rights, increased influence
of the women's movemet, a heightened concern for the environment, and
increased space exploration. Many of the "radical" ideas of the 60's gained
wider acceptance in the new decade, and were mainstreamed into American life
and culture. Amid war, social realignment and presidential impeachment
proceedings, American culture flourished. Indeed, the events of the times
were reflected in and became the inspiraton for much of the music, literature,
entertainment, and even fashion of the decade."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1970 - 1979]
1970: Thomas McGrath, Letter to an Imaginary Friend, Part I and II
1970: Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays
1970: A. B. Guthrie, Arfive
1970: Paul Horgan, WhitewaterMovie Westerns of 1970
1971: Founding of Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature,
David D. Anderson and others
1971: Frank Waters, Pike's Peak
1971: Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose, wins Pulitzer Prize (1972)
1971: John Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mystique
1971: Wright Morris, Fire Sermon
1971: First issue of Southwestern American Literature published
1971: The Literature of the American West, edited by J. Golden Taylor
1971: Lawrence Clark Powell, California Classics
1971: Lawson Inada, Before the War, first collection of poems
1971: Down at the Santa Fe Depot, edited by David Kherdian and
James Baloian
1971: Tomás Rivera, "...y no se lo tragó la tierra" first novel
1971: Paul Foreman founds Thorp Springs Press
1971: Elmer Kelton, The Day the Cowboys QuitMovie Westerns of 1971
1972: Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima
1972: Hanay Geiogamah,Body Indian, opens
1972: John Seelye, The Kid
1972: Frank Chin, The Chickencoop Chinaman, is staged
1972: Thomas McGrath, The Movie at the End of the World: Collected Poems
1972: Boise State College Western Writers Series begins, edited by Wayne
Chatterton and James H. Maguire
1972: Ann H. Zwinger (with Beatrice Willard), Land Above the Trees: A
Guide to American Alpine Tundra
1972: George Keithly, The Donner Party, first poetry book
1972: Larry Levis, The Wrecking Crew, first collection of poems, wins U.S.
Award from International Poetry Forum
Movie Westerns of 1972
1973: Elmer Kelton, The Time It Never Rained
1973: Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
1973: Wright Morris, A Life
1973: Gerald Haslam, Okies, first collection of stories
1973: Frank Bidart, Golden State, first poetry collection
1973: Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915
1973: Arna Bontemps, The Old South
1973: Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, The Carousel Would Haunt Me, first
poetry collection
1973: Rolando Hinojosa-S[mith], Estampas del valle y otras obras, first
collection of stories
1973: William T. Pilkington, My Blood's Country
1973: Paul Foreman, Redwing Blackbird, first poetry collection
1973: Richard Hugo, The Lady in Kicking Horse ReservoirMovie Westerns of 1973
1974: Copper Canyon Press founded by Sam Hamill and Tree Swenson
1974: Art Cuelho, The Last Inch of Shade, first poetry collection
1974: Miguel Méndez, Peregrinas de Aztlán
1974: Western Writing, edited by Gerald Haslam
1974: Arnold R. Rojas, These Were the Vaqueros
1974: Len Fulton, The Grassman, first novel
1974: Lawrence Clark Powell, Southwest Classics
1974: The Man to Send Rain Clouds, edited by Kenneth Rosen; short story
collection of contemporary American Indian writers
1974: Hector Lee, Tales of California
1974: Gary Snyder, Turtle Island, wins Pulitzer Prize (1975)
1974: John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War
1974: James Welch, Winter in the Blood
1974: Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio: From the ThirtiesMovie Westerns of 1974
1975: Laurence Yep, Dragonwings
1975: Jack Schaefer, An American Bestiary
1975: Ron Arias, The Road to Tamazunchale
1975: Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang
1975: Paul Horgan, Lamy of Santa Fe, wins Pulitzer Prize (1976) for history
1975: Literature of the American Indian: Views and Interpretations, first
anthology of critical essays dealing with American Indian literature
1975: Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian-American Writers,
edited by Frank Chin, et al.
1975: The Western Story: Fact, Fiction and Myth, edited by Philip Durham
and Everett L. Jones
1975: Larry McMurtry, Terms of EndearmentMovie Westerns of 1975
1976: Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird, wins National Book Award
1976: David Wagoner, Collected Poems
1976: Preston Jones, A Texas Trilogy, opens on Broadway
1976: William Everson, Archetype West
1976: Luis Valdez, La Carpa de los Rasquachis
1976: El Teatro Campesino performs in Europe
1976: Gerald Locklin, The Chase, first novel
1976: Phantasm founded by Larry Jackson
Movie Westerns of 1976
1977: Southwest: A Contemporary Anthology, edited by Karl and Jane Kopp
1977: William Stafford, Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems
1977: Paul Horgan, The Thin Mountain Air
1977: Gary Soto, The Elements of San Joaquin, first collection of poetry
1977: Leslie Silko, Ceremony
1977: Gary Witherspoon, Language and Art in the Navajo Universe
1977: Richard Hugo, 31 Letters and 13 Dreams
1977: Dick Harrison, Unnamed Country: The Struggle for a Canadian Prairie Fiction
1977: Robert Day, The Last Cattle DriveMovie Westerns of 1977
1978: William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl
1978: Sam Shepard, Buried Child, wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama
1978: Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit
1978: California Heartland, regional anthology edited by Gerald Haslam and
James D. Houston
1978: Women Poets of the West: An Anthology 1850-1950, edited by
A. Thomas Trusky
1978: Barry Holstun Lopez, Of Wolves and Men
1978: Elmer Kelton, The Good Old Boys
1978: C. L. Sonnichsen, From Hopalong to Hud: Thoughts on Western Fiction
1978: Ivan Doig, This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western MindMovie Westerns of 1978
1979: Chester Seltzer, The Stories of Amado Muro
1979: Lanford Wilson, Tulley's Folly, wins Pulitzer Prize for drama
1979: Jessamyn West, The Life I Really Lived
1979: Marilyn Brown, The Earthkeepers
1979: Wallace Stegner, Recapitulation
1979: Dick Harrison, Crossing Frontiers: Papers in American and Canadian
Western LiteratureMovie Westerns of 1979Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1980-1990
1980-1989
FACTS about this decade.
* Population: 226,546,000
* Unemployed in 1980:
* National Debt: 1980 - $914,000,000,000
* National Debt: 1986 - $2,000,000,000,000
* Average salary: $15,757
* Life Expectancy: Male 69.9 Female 77.6
* Minimum Wage: $3.10
* BMW was $12,000; Mercedes 280 E was $14,800
* Attendance: Movies 20 million/week
"The 1980s became the Me! Me! Me! generation of status seekers. During the
1980s, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, and mega-mergers spawned a new
breed of billionaire. Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and Ivan Boesky iconed
the meteoric rise and fall of the rich and famous. If you've got it, flaunt it
and You can have it all! were watchwords. Forbes' list of 400 richest people
became more important than its 500 largest companies. Binge buying and credit
became a way of life and 'Shop Til you Drop' was the watchword. Labels were
everything, even (or especially) for our children. Tom Wolfe dubbed the
baby-boomers as the 'splurge generation.' Video games, aerobics, minivans,
camcorders, and talk shows became part of our lives. The decade began with
double-digit inflation, Reagan declared a war on drugs, Kermit didn't find it
easy to be green, hospital costs rose, we lost many, many of our finest talents
to AIDS which before the decade ended spread to black and Hispanic women, and
unemployment rose. On the bright side, the US Constitution had its 200th
birthday, Gone with the Wind turned 50, ET phoned home, and in
1989 Americans gave $115,000,000,000 to charity. And, Internationally, at the
very end of the decade the Berlin Wall was removed - making great changes for the
decade to come!
At the turn of the decade, many were happy to leave the spendthrift 80s for
the 90s, although some thought the eighties TOTALLY AWESOME."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1980 - 1989]
1980: Wright Morris, Plains Song, wins American Book Award
1980: Sam Shepard, True West, opens off Broadway
1980: Southwestern American Literature: A Bibliography, edited by John Q.
Anderson, et al.
1980: Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men
1980: John R. Milton, The Novel of the American West
1980: Frank Waters, Mountain Dialogues
1980: Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
1980: Southwest: Toward the Twenty-First Century, edited by Karl and Jane
Kopp
1980: A Bibliographical Guide to Midwestern Literature, edited by Gerald C.
Nemanic
1980: Wayne Ude, Becoming Coyote, first novel
Movie Westerns of 1980
1981: Don D. Walker, Clio's Cowboys: Studies in the Historiography of the
Cattle TradeMovie Westerns of 1981
1982: Wright Morris wins Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service
in Literature
1982: William Stafford, A Glass House in the Rain
1982: Thomas McGrath, Passages Toward the Dark
1982: Richard Dokey, August Light
1982: Ivan Doig, The Sea Runners
1982: Texas Books in Review, edited by William T. Pilkington, begins
1982: Levi S. Peterson, The Canyons of Grace, first short story collection
1982: Fifty Western Writers, edited by Fred Erisman and Richard W. Etulain
1982: A. B. Guthrie, Fair Land, Fair Land
1982: A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Western American Literature,
compiled by Richard W. Etulain
1982: Larry McMurtry, Cadillac Jack
1982: Thomas McGuane, Nobody's Angel
1982: Lanford Wilson, Angels Fall
1982: Wallace Stegner, One Way to Spell ManMovie Westerns of 1982
1982: Lou Halsell Rodenberger, ed., Her Work: Stories by Texas Women
1983: David James Duncan, The River Why
1983: Louis L'Amour first novelist to be given a special National Gold
Medal by Congress
1983: Historians and the American West, edited by Michael P. Malone
1983: The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, first feminist American Indian
novel published by feminist press, Spinsters Ink
1983: Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski,
Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western FictionMovie Westerns of 1983
1984: Joan Didion, Democracy
1984: Douglas Unger, Leaving the Land
1984: Westward the Women: An Anthology of Western Stories by Women,
edited by Vicki Piekarski
Movie Westerns of 1984
1985: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1985
1986: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1986
1987: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1987
1988: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1988
1989: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1989Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Books of the Decade 1990-2000
1990-1999
FACTS ABOUT THIS DECADE
* Population: 270,000,000 (Aug 98)
* Unemployment: 5.8 million, or 4.2% (Sept 99)
* National Debt: $5,413.l Million (1997)
* Average Salary: $13.37/hr (1999)
* Teacher's Salary: $39,347 (1998)
* Minimum Wage: $5.15/hr (1997)
* Life Expectancy: Male 73.1 Female 79.1(1997)
* Auto Deaths: 49,772 (1997)
"The 1990s was truly the electronic age. We would not have been able to publish
our electronic decades web site if it weren't for the Web. The World Wide Web
was born in 1992, changing the way we communicate (email), spend our money
(online gambling, stores), and do business (e-commerce). By 1994, 3 million
people were online. By 1998, 100 million people were. It is estimated that by
2001, some 1 billion people will be connected.Internet lingo like plug-ins,
BTW (by the way), GOK (God only knows), IMHO (in my humble opinion), FAQS, SPAM,
FTP, ISP, and phrases like "See you online" or "The server's down" or
"Bill Gates" became part of our everyday vocabulary. We signed our mail
with a :-) smile, a ;-) wink, or a :-* kiss. And - everyone has a
cell phone..."
[Source: Kingwood College Library, American Cultural History, 1990 - 1999]
1990: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1990
1991: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1991
1992: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1992
1993: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1993
1994: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1994
1995: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1995
1996: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1996
1997: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1997
1998: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1998
1999: {to be done}
Movie Westerns of 1999Return to Top of 20th century Timeline PageMajor Western Films of the 20th Century
The 19th was the century in which the motion picture was invented, with the
date 1896 most frequently given, although several people are claimed as the
very first filmmakers, including the Lumiere Brothers. It was, of course,
the 20th Century that established the movies as a major medium of art and
entertainment worldwide. The Western was, from the start, a major genre
of motion pictures.
Year By Year
* = recommended
** = highly recommended
Movie Westerns, alphabetically by title:
list of 1,755 films, 88 with cast/plot, last updated 16 August 2001
The first movie Westerns belong to the end of the 19th century:
1. Cripple Creek Barroom (1898)
2. Bluff from a Tenderfoot, A (1899)
Between 1900 and 1902 none survive that I know.
Movie Westerns of 1903

Great Train Robbery, The (1903) *** the first movie to truly tell a story

Due figli di Trinitŕ, I (1972)
...aka Two Sons of Trinity (1972) (USA)

Due fratelli (1972)
...aka Due fratelli in un posto chiamato Trinitŕ (1972) (Italy)
...aka Jesse and Lester, Two Brothers in a Place Called Trinity (1972)
...aka Place Called Trinity, A (1972)
...aka Trinity (1972)
...aka Two Brothers in Trinity (1972) (USA)

Copyright 1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001 by Magic Dragon Multimedia.
All rights reserved Worldwide. May not be reproduced without permission.
May be posted electronically provided that it is transmitted unaltered, in its
entirety, and without charge.